The substantial development made in electrical equipment designed to be installed inside the body of a patient to rectify failure of a natural organ already implies a capability for transmitting electric power required by this equipment, from a source of external power to the interior of the body if that quantity of energy is too important to be delivered by implanted batteries.
Contactless power-supply techniques using power transmission via transformer already exist. For instance, WO 2004/052455 discloses a device for transcutaneous energy transmission, i.e. a contactless transmission of energy without traversing the skin. Such device is designed to be fixed onto the osseous surface and is not adapted for intra-osseous burial.
Power-supply techniques via percutaneous cranial implants are also known. Electric connectors can be inserted in the abutments to which cables or electric linking ribbons leading to electric power consumer equipment are connected.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,904,646 discloses in particular a percutaneous socket enabling an electric connection between an apparatus implanted in the body of a patient, and an external apparatus such as a power supply. This percutaneous socket is fixed onto the surface of an osseous wall by means of osteosynthesis screws, with all the pieces making up the socket and the cables being therefore submuscular or subcutaneous. However, such an arrangement of the socket is not very reliable and vulnerable to infections propagated from percutaneous passage.
Patent FR 03-04063 also discloses a permanent percutaneous electric connection device, provided to electrically connect an internal entity to a human or animal body with an entity external to said body, this device comprising a plate support provided to be impacted in a bone of said body, and percutaneous means of electric connection which comprise (i) fixed means of electric connection integrated into the plate support, and (ii) removable means of electric connection provided to be coupled electrically to said fixed means of electric connection and connected respectively to supple electric linking means.
Entity located inside the body or internal entity here means any electric consumer apparatus or producer of electric power, arranged or not to receive a command or control signal, and/or any equipment for measuring or sensing provided for generating electric signals.
Entity external to the body or external entity means any equipment near or distant from the body, provided to supply electric power and/or command or control signals, or to receive signals generated by any sensor or electric apparatus inside the body and/or electric power generated by equipment inside the body.
Such a permanent osseointegrated percutaneous electric connection device has a high level of security and reliability which makes it eligible for demanding uses, especially in cardiology and neurology.
In particular, such permanent percutaneous electric connection devices allow a soft tissue reduction around the percutaneous abutment, which reduces risks of infection, especially at the level of the percutaneous passage. However, even though the risk of infection at the level of the percutaneous passage is reduced, it still exists, and the devices of the prior art are not adapted to limit or even stop the propagation of infectious agents. In particular, known permanent percutaneous electric connection devices have no means provided for limiting or preventing any risk of propagation of infectious agents along the electric cable or electric cables connecting the percutaneous socket to the internal apparatus.
An aim of the present invention is therefore to propose a permanent percutaneous electric connection that can be osseointegrated, adapted to soft tissue reduction and can be easily connected and disconnected to a cervical cable.
More precisely, an aim of the present invention is to propose a permanent percutaneous electric connection device designed to be osseointegrated in an osseous structure of a patient, ensuring increased reliability, and reducing the propagation of possible infectious agents.
To make the osseointegration possible, the device must be solidly implanted with precision in a complementary cavity, preferably made in an osseous wall, for example in the thickness of the cranium at a distance from the dura mater, in order to realize what is referred to the “primary stabilization”, without which the osseointegration process cannot start. That device setting up must respect certain established surgical principles, indispensable to osseointegration: preparation of the osseous cavity as least traumatic as possible, abundant irrigation with saline serum with minimal heating of the bone, adequate primary stabilisation of the implanted device.